


It's Electrifying!

by heibai



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Dumb weebs, M/M, Science bros? More like scientist man and his victim, a hint of tsundere, he got an A+ in organic chemistry but a U in relationship chemistry, just an overall dumb plot filled with dumb people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: The number one bullet point in a science weeb’s resume is emotional illiteracy.(Or when Donghyuk equates quality bonding time with forcing Renjun to be a guinea pig for his wacky experiments.)





	It's Electrifying!

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by those moments when Renjun's hair got caught on other members' hair and wow u dont know how many times i changed the premise of this story.
> 
> Just know that at one point, this story was a Sky High!au :))) 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

“Are you sure about this?”

 

“Yeah! I mean, what can go wrong?”

 

“It’s just… this is embarrassing,” Renjun let out a mumble, his fidgety fingers and darting eyes a blatant telling of his poorly masked discomfort. He didn’t even know what made him agree to this. He thought Donghyuk was joking when he told him the plans he had for them to do on the weekend.

 

But no. He was being completely serious, and now Renjun has no excuse to complain because he’d agreed to allow Donghyuk to experiment on himself earlier that week.

 

So there he was. Being trapped in this strange room that was decorated from floor to ceiling with ripped pages of Science Digest. Wearing a fluffy sweater in the middle of summer, with a portable fan blowing dry wind smack dab onto his face, and holding a modified phone charger that Donghyuk just told him to put up his nostrils.

 

“Up my _what?!”_

 

“Nobody’s going to see it aside from me!”  

 

Hearing that, Renjun then jabbed his middle finger onto Donghyuk’s blinking webcam, “what’s this then?!”

 

“That’s for research purposes!” Donghyuk said as he frustratedly threw his arms to the air, “only _I_ will ever see it! Who do you think _I_ am to break any confidentiality agreement?!”

 

“Wait… what confidentiality agreement,-”

 

Donghyuk only hand-waved Renjun’s sudden concerns figuratively, with a quick saying of his version of a confidentiality clause, and literally, when he wiggled his fingers wildly in front of Renjun’s face and told him to quickly get on with doing his agreed tasks.

 

“I will never upload any footage on any social media platforms, if you got hurt or die because of this experiment I’m not accountable because you agreed to it, yadda yadda yadda, the usual stuff!”

 

“Wait a sec…,-”

 

“Now!” The sound of Donghyuk clapping his hands together so close to Renjun’s face acted as a metaphysical mouth plug for him. Because then he was too busy rubbing the sharp pain from within his ear canals to care for the shady things that wouldn’t stop spouting out from Donghyuk’s oversized mouth.

 

“Here we have our test subject, Huang Renjun, aged 15, has two turtles at home, favourite subject is home economy,- say hello Mr. Huang!”

 

To Donghyuk’s forceful nudge, Renjun responded with a wooden handwave. Complete with an accompanying toothy grimace. Another sharp slap on his upper arm erased the terrifying expression just as quickly as it was drawn there.

 

“Experiment number two is about to begin,” Donghyuk said, a glare that said _‘behave, or else,’_ flashed for a brief second when he broke his eye contact with the webcam to put on his _lab coat._

 

(It was actually his dad’s old work uniform all cut up to fit with his short arms, but quoting Donghyuk’s life motto: in a pinch, anything that looks similar will do.)

 

Donghyuk snatched the phone charger from Renjun’s slack fingers and shoved it to his laptop, “today’s aim is to see whether this human-powered phone charger would work. My hypothesis is, it will.”

 

In the middle of his ramble, Donghyuk tossed the charger over his shoulders and only relied on faith that Renjun would care enough and have a good enough hand-eye-coordination to be able to catch the delicate contraption. Of course, as Donghyuk’s trusted right hand man, he did.

 

Renjun quickly regretted that he did though, that he caught the charger (not that Donghyuk considered him to be his right hand man), because when Donghyuk next opened his mouth and continued on his research recapitulation, Renjun heard something so shocking his eyeballs threatened to pop out of the sockets,

 

“To make sure that this second experiment is reliable, I’ve made sure to keep the... sameness of all variables except for the human power source. And that includes the charger’s nose contraption.”

 

Renjun looked down at the charger on his palm and swore that he saw a small speck of green _something_ stuck in the corner of an unreachable nook. He wanted to vomit right there and then. “EW! YOU DIDN’T WASH THIS?!” He managed to heave out those words, dripping with disgust, of course, before throwing the charger right at Donghyuk’s head.

 

“Are you stupid?! It’s a phone charger! How can I possibly wash it?!” He yelled back at Renjun while frantically checking if the harsh impact did any damage to his precious prototype.

 

“I think I’m getting sick,-”

 

“You’re such a drama queen.”

 

“And you’re disgusting.”

 

They were then locked in a silent, venomous staring battle. So many implied insults and swear words were thrown between the barren waste of the no-man’s-land, before Donghyuk ended it by letting out an exceptionally loud groan. He blinked. And thus he lost.

 

“Remind me to cut this part from the final product.”

 

Renjun only let out an painfully forced laughter in response. He will never, _ever_ let Donghyuk cut his defeat out from his scientific video essay. This is a victory that shall live for as long as he does.

 

 

_

 

“I can’t believe I said yes to this.” Renjun mumbled as he sat with his back hunched parallel to Doghyuk’s laptop. The voice coming out of his half opened mouth sounded all nasal and embarrassed, what with him already having the phone charger’s (already cleaned) two modified plugs jabbed so far up his nostrils, “can’t you like… put a censor bar over my eyes later or…”

 

“Well!” Without even batting an eyelash to the doom and gloom that was Renjun, The Scientist Man himself jumped back into the video frame, too excited with the prospect of finally being able to run his experiment to care for his friend’s level of comfort. On his hand was a big sheet of thick acetate paper that he wobbled in front of his webcam, “I forgot to state the reason why I chose Mr. Huang right here to be today’s experimentation subject.”

 

He then put the acetate paper on top of his head. After waiting for almost five seconds and nothing happened, He did a tiny jump on his spot and yelled, “exactly! Now look at this.”

 

Donghyuk then effortlessly slid slightly to his left and in turn hovered the acetate sheet over Renjun’s head. And slowly, his hair rose, like wilted grasses being revived from their deathbeds by a refreshing summer drizzle. Or like ivy tendrils on a journey to find the sun. Like two opposing magnet ends who couldn’t help but try to stick themselves together.

 

“SEE?!” Donghyuk squealed while jabbing his finger repeatedly at the wispy strands of Renjun hair, not caring that the latter was looking at him with an expression of pure puzzlement as he did so, “he somehow stores more static electricity in his body than any normal human!”

 

“Oh wow! Does that mean I’m a superhero?!” His past annoyances seemingly already forgotten after learning an interesting, never before known tidbit about himself, Renjun swivelled himself around so he could look at Donghyuk right on his face while he was asking for a confirmation. But his bright grin was reciprocated with only a peculiar expression on Donghyuk’s face. Not a frown, yet also not a grimace. _“Just smelled a particularly salty bag of salted fish,”_ that’s how Renjun would describe it best.

 

Could it be disgust?

 

Maybe.

 

But why?

 

A literal jolt of electricity seemingly brought Donghyuk away from his deep stupor. When Renjun went to wave his hand in front of his face and a _literal_ bolt of lightning shot from the surface of his palm and struck Donghyuk right on the tip of his nose. It was probably the tiniest bolt of lightning in all history of lightning bolts, but still. It was one. And the shock (and the pain, but he would never admit to that) caused Donghyuk to jump two steps backward, rubbing that dry nose of his with the back of his hand, “oh my god.”

 

 _“Oh my god I_ am _a superhero,”_ Renjun gushed, practically vibrating out of all the excitement. So much so, in fact, that he didn’t care for how Donghyuk’s shenanigans ended up making his hair looking like the ringlets of a poodle. Or like a cheerleaders’ pom pom. Or well, like a lightning strike victim.

 

“We have to look into that more,” this time, it was Donghyuk’s turn to sound nasally, what with him still trying to pinch the itchy sensation of an electric current out from his nose, “but for now…”

 

There was a short pause, broken only by the loud screech that Renjun let out when he felt Donghyuk’s full weight against his back when the kid suddenly charged at him and struck his back, full on, with both of his open palm, “TIME TO DO SOME EXPERIMENT!!”

 

But before that could happen, the acetate paper that was stuck between Donghyuk’s hands and Renjun’s sweater flew away from his hold while being accompanied by a loud crackling noise. Renjun swore the room was briefly filled with a flash of blue light and he was too distracted with trying to figure out what the heck that was, and to find where the weird smell of burned fabric came from to notice the way Donghyuk was acting. All panicked and suspicious, like he was trying to hide something from someone.

 

He rapidly waved his hands all over the vicinity of Renjun’s head and mumbled, “I think I need to get myself some rubber gloves.”

 

 

_

 

Renjun hated to admit this but the feel of Donghyuk’s rubber-gloved hands rubbing against his back felt… sort of… good. Great, even, if only the darned acetate paper wasn’t being used to create so many inert static electricity so close to his already singed hair.

 

(Yes, he found out about that, and no, Donghyuk is not a good liar.)

 

But still, however good the free back massage was, they’ve been doing this for almost five minutes and Renjun was getting terribly bored. He would’ve probably nodded off since the two minutes mark if only the occasional static shocks that came from all the charged hair strands floating around his forehead weren’t preventing him from doing such a thing.

 

“Donghyuk… I don’t think this is working.”

 

But like how those unresponsive web pages would only load on the split second after you hit the tab’s exit button, not long after Renjun grumbled out his agitation, before he finished his sentence, even, his phone let out the familiar ping and buzz that would only come to be if it was plugged to a working power source.

 

On the five seconds where they both watched his phone screen lit up with the unmistakable charging battery icon, Donghyuk and Renjun looked like they’ve just won the lottery. With eyes the size of teacup saucers and mouths that gaped wide like they were beached fish who were to gobble up air in their desperation to escape death.

 

Well, truthfully it was a lottery that was immediately cancelled once Donghyuk stopped rubbing that acetate paper on Renjun’s back, that was. But it was all good. The both of them was far too excited to notice that.

 

“OH MY GOD IT WORKS!!”

 

“IT WORKS, IT WORKS, IT WORKS!”

 

They both shot up to their feet so quick, as if their legs were made out of springs, and their hearts began to join in on their screamings too. With a _‘what the fuck is happening?!’_ and a blood flow that became inevitably stuck at the base of their necks.

 

They were seeing stars. And probably not in a good way. Not in a _healthy_ way, that is. Their weak and flabby bodies, never taken out to do any exercises but for the measly one hour mandatory physical education class, were protesting against their sudden excitement and rapid movements. And they were protesting _hard._

 

Donghyuk noticed the anomaly quick enough for him to reach out with his gloved hand, finding some means to keep his center mass of gravity through a shaky grip around the top knob of his crafting cupboard. Renjun, on the other hand, was less fortunate. Half blind and nauseous in a strange room whose layout he still wasn’t familiar with, he could only awkwardly wobble around, with that stupid phone charger still hanging on his nostrils, mind you, thinking, _‘what’s the route I can take that’ll lead to the least amount of injury.’_

 

Forward and he’ll probably bang his head against the door. Backwards and he’ll crash against the low coffee table. Sideways and he’ll crash onto Donghyuk and _Renjun didn’t want to crash onto Donghyuk._ He’d rather give himself a concussion than to risk bringing to the forefront of his mind the ever so tidily hidden forbidden fantasy in which he lived in a universe where he found himself wanting, or god help him, actively searching for the chance to be held by his eccentric best friend.

 

Turns out he didn’t have a say on all that. Not on where he was going to fall, and definitely not on the one thing that for so long he’d believed to have a full control over. Because when Renjun felt Donghyuk’s rubbery fingers wrapping around his arms before pulling him closer and sharing with him the little bit of lower body stability that he’d gained, Renjun felt as if his brain was detonated in a botched attempt at setting off a box of fireworks. Filling the back of his eyelids with a multicoloured show of confusing patterns that were so strong they caused him to feel physical chills all over his forehead and blushing cheeks, that came over him like neverending droves of fire ant colonies.

 

Through all of the confusion, the feeling of Donghyuk’s arms firmly fastened around his shoulders, and another zing of faint blue flash, Renjun somehow accepted the fact that yes, maybe, _maybe,_ he always said yes to be Donghyuk’s guinea pig because it gave them more time to spend together. But then, when his brain was fully oxygenated once more, when he could once again detect the distinct smell of burned hair wafting underneath his blocked nostrils, and when he heard the tail end of Donghyuk’s profanities-laden scream of pain, Renjun released that maybe, probably, everything that he just felt was nothing more but the side effect of all the pent up static energy equalising when their naked skin touched.

 

Renjun started to suspect that all these experiments with electricity had caused some sort of scrambling in his mind, because if not, what other explanation could there be for his sudden adoption of the thought process of a heroine in a hopeless romantic novella? Renjun has never been one to believe those cliched _‘I saw fireworks when my crush holds me’,_ as A.) Romance is dead, and B.) he _doesn’t_ have a crush on Donghyuk.

 

“ _Fuck_ that was painful!” Donghyuk yelled as he pushed Renjun away from him. He did it with a certain sense of haste in his movement, as if he too only realised how strange and awkward his previous decision was.

 

“It’s all your fault,” Renjun retaliated with an equally annoyed-sounding huff, stumbling his way onto Donghyuk’s bed before ripping the darned contraption away from his nose and throwing it carelessly back to its creator. Though Renjun knew, and he knew that Donghyuk too knew, of how forced the coarseness underneath his words was. Something he only adopted because he didn’t want Donghyuk to find out of how thoroughly he enjoyed their brief moment of intimacy, and how much he wished that it would’ve lasted a little bit longer.

 

To not give away his secret, Renjun refused to meet Donghyuk’s gaze. Instead pretending to be busy with his phone and ignoring all of Donghyuk’s attempt to regain his attention. But halfway through, Renjun began to suspect that he might’ve actually revealed much more than he could afford by closing up himself like this. So obvious. Everything that he did is so obviously _fake._

 

“I didn’t ask you to catch me. So you getting shocked is all your fault.”

 

There it was again, unfurling slowly on his face as Donghyuk rubbed the stinging pain off the red patches on his arms. The _look_. Nose and forehead scrunched like a plastic bag you found forgotten at the bottom of your shopping trolley. Lips curling up into a thin grimace. Eyes that looked at Renjun with a silent mumbling of _‘you disgust me.’_

 

But why?

 

What did Renjun do to cause Donghyuk to see him in such a negative light?

 

Was it because Donghyuk found a gigantic booger stuck on the end of his modified phone charger? Or was it because Donghyuk could see right through his poor camouflage and was disturbed by what he saw lying underneath?

 

“Hey, at least the experiment worked?” Just like shedding a jacket, Donghyuk dropped his worrying expression with a casual shrug. When he next gave Renjun a look after he turned off his webcam, there was no trace of animosity left on his face. Just the familiar look of smugness and the faint air of arrogance because _my IQ is ten points higher than you._

 

But the deed was done, and Renjun was not willing to put up with anymore of it.

 

“I don’t care if it worked or not.”

 

Renjun was done being humiliated _“in the name of science”_ and exasperatedly announced that he was, “tired with all this science nonsense. I don’t even get paid for doing this,” before running out of Donghyuk’s room. Soon, after he noticed that he still wore Donghyuk’s sweater and barged back into the room just so he could throw it onto Donghyuk’s face, he was out of his mad scientist’s house.

 

He could still catch the faint traces of Donghyuk’s yell, largely it was him calling Renjun a _cowardly mouse_ with no desire to further the scientific knowledge of humanity. And a tiny little bit of him trying to apologise and how he was, “sorry I put you through all that.”

 

But too late, it was all too late. Because by then, Renjun was already running down the street as he told himself, “I won’t ever talk to him ever again.” _Because he thinks I’m annoying._

 

But then, when he board the bus that’ll take him home and a strong zap of static electricity crawled up his arm after he went to touch the handrail, Renjun found himself having to hide a very wide grin with both his palms plopped over his face, so as not to be seen as crazy by the disinterested old lady sitting beside him.

 

He gave up.

 

Let Donghyuk think of him as the most abominable person in this world. If he ever asked him to be a volunteer for another one of his silly experiments, there will only ever be one word that he’ll give as an answer.

 

_“Again?”_

  


_ _ _

 

 

 

(Just like Renjun, Donghyuk too was trying his best to hide all his true intentions from showing to someone he thought has been giving him the sour eyes for the whole entire afternoon.

 

The grimace that he did?

 

Was to stop him from letting out all of his happiness, of getting to spend a weekend with his sceptical friend, in one wide smile.)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ my twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil) ~


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